


lost it to trying.

by ohmygodwhy



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Dealing With Trauma, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Episode: s05e16 Felina, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 06:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: During the one single grief counseling-therapy session thing he ever went to, provided by the hospital after his Aunt Ginny died, they had something similar to that stupid card. It was like, pick a picture that best describes how you’re feeling, and it was a bunch of faces again—this time there was a little more diversity in the expressions, but the concept was the same.Jesse had stared down at the laminated paper, shiny and glossy, and didn’t know which one to pick.





	lost it to trying.

**Author's Note:**

> me as soon as jesse appeared on screen in the pilot: sir that's my emotional support drug dealer

 

i.

 

There’s this card thing that Jesse remembers, next to his hospital bed, the one with all the faces matched with numbers to use to like, rate your pain or whatever. He remembers it real clearly because that was the time Hank beat the shit right out of him, broke his jaw and all that, and he was a few months fresh out of rehab so he refused any painkillers, which meant he hurt like a bitch all over. He remembers the face that matched with the number ten—the highest you could go—and how it was all red and sad and fucked up, kind of how his own face felt. It felt like all the faces were staring at him, but especially that number ten, like it was telling him: this is how you’re feeling, huh? This is what that douchebag cop did to your face.  
  
Of course, like half a year later he made a whole deal with that douchebag cop and then watched him die, but that was besides the point.  
  
The point is. Was. Well, the point is that he remembers that stupid pain-rating face card thing whenever he’s sitting alone in a fucking hole in the ground wondering if his body’s ever gonna stop hurting, and he remembers it later, when he’s sitting in the parking lot of a gas station somewhere in Utah, because he’s still pretty fucked up from all his time living in the previously mentioned hole in the ground.  
  
During the one single grief counseling-therapy session thing he ever went to, provided by the hospital after his Aunt Ginny died, they had something similar to that stupid card. It was like, pick a picture that best describes how you’re feeling, and it was a bunch of faces again—this time there was a little more diversity in the expressions, but the concept was the same. Jesse had stared down at the laminated paper, shiny and glossy, and didn’t know which one to pick.  
  
He didn’t think he was mad, because Aunt Ginny had been dying for a while now so he knew it was coming—shit, he’d been there every day, every step of the way— but it still seemed unfair, somehow. Like, she was a decent person. She didn’t deserve to die of brain cancer months after her brain already started to fuck up. He didn’t really know if he was feeling sad, either. He mostly felt kind of like... empty, that weird way you do after something Big and Bad happens. But there was no face that said “empty” below it, so he just pointed to the frowny face with the tacky little tear in the corner of its eye.  
  
He never went to another session, because he was pretty much fine. It was sad, but it’s not like he watched his parents die in front of him or anything like that. He wasn’t Batman. He remembers thinking that, so clearly: I’m not Batman or anything. He was so dumb back then. Poor fucker didn’t know what was coming for him.  
  
He thinks he should probably get some form of therapy now that’s it’s all Over—because it is over now. Todd is dead and Mr White is dead (and so is Andrea and so is Mike, but don’t think about them). He’s far far away and he doesn’t think anyone is looking for him anymore. He can probably fake whatever he needs to, but there’s no way he can like, tell anyone about everything without getting arrested and pulled into that shit all over again. His hands shake whenever he thinks about talking to someone about it, whenever he thinks about how to make it better. He doesn’t know how to make it better. Back when he was still some version of himself that he recognized, some version that he knew, he would light up some pot or some crystal or whatever the fuck else he could get his hands on and just forget, but he obviously can’t that now.  
  
He went to the library and found some book about PTSD or whatever, but he can’t bring himself to even crack it open.  
  
It’s whatever, he thinks. He has all the time in the world to work it out.

 

ii.

 

They don’t have any pain level card thing at the hospital he drives Aunt Ginny to every week, for her appointments. It’s much more professional than that, this place. It’s for adults. It’s for cancer patients. The thing about cancer patients, or at least about Aunt Ginny, is that she’s always in some kind of pain. There’s nothing pointing at a picture on a rate-your-pain card will do about that.  
  
Jesse drives her to her appointments each week and he come to make her lunch everyday, skips chemistry and lunch and PE to drive the four blocks to Aunt Ginny’s house instead. Which is fine with him, because he hates both of those classes anyways, and no one else is gonna come make her lunch—his parents think he must be doing it for some sinister, drug-related reason, that maybe he’s stealing her pills or trying to get in on her money, but it’s not like they’re willing to miss work to check on her themselves.  
  
It’s just him and Aunt Ginny. It’s been that way for a while now, since mom and dad don’t like him much because he gets bad grades because he can’t focus and won’t “apply himself”, because he gets high and skips class and they’ve threatened to send him to rehab or military school but they don’t ever do anything about it other than kicking him out of the house for a day or two and leaving him to his aunt. Which is damn well fine with him. Aunt Ginny is cool. She’s not as uptight as his mom is and she lets him smoke on the back patio as long as he lets her have some too when she wants it, and she makes great lasagna and likes to watch bad movies with him and make fun of them. She supports his idea of maybe not going to college, says that it’s overrated and expensive anyways, and that grades aren’t everything and the school system is broken. He doesn’t really know what that last part means, but it sounds like something right out of a song or a rebel sort of thing that should be spray painted on the side of some building.  
  
He loves her. He watches her die. It’s a slow moving, shitty thing, to watch someone you love die of something like cancer, that takes and takes and picks apart at them slowly and then all at once.  
  
Obviously he doesn’t give her any smokes anymore, keeps his to a minimum. He counts out her pills and sets alarms to remember to give them to her on time. It took her forever to get her to take them—she’s always been a stubborn old thing, proud and independent, but eventually even she knew she needed them. She doesn’t fight it anymore. Just gives him a vacant smiles and says “Thank you, Jesse. You’re a good boy.”  
  
She’s the only one who thinks so. That he’s good. That he’s anything more than a future criminal-junkie-whatever the fuck. She thinks he can be something good, even if he doesn’t get good grades or go to college.  
  
There was no rate-your-pain thing at any of her appointments, so it makes him feel childish when the grief counselor gives him one.  
  
There’s no face that says “just watched the one person who gives a fuck about you die over the course of several months”, so he just picks the sad one.  
  
She leaves him her house, to move into once he graduates. His mom doesn’t like it very much—that she gave it to him, that he loved her more than he loved his mom—but she also wants him out of the house. He keeps her room the same as it was, the same as it had been for years. Doesn’t touch a thing. Part of her still lives there—exists, or whatever. Not in a creepy way. Just, in a way that he needs to keep.  
  
It was her house, after all. And she left it to him, no one else. So he buys it back from his parents and shuts the door in their faces. He thinks that Aunt Ginny would’ve laughed her ass off if she coulda seen their faces.

 

iii.

 

He stays in Nevada for a while; he feels better having a few states in between him and New Mexico. He thinks maybe he’ll head to Alaska, like he planned to before everybody went to absolute shit. Before his godforsaken escape attempt, he dreamt about getting to Andrea and leaving the state, maybe staying with her family in Mexico while they settled. She mentioned wanted to visit Cali to get Brock to the beach. He gives Cali a wide berth. Maybe he’ll be able to go someday, but he thinks that won’t be for a long, long while. 

He lays low for a while, because the Heisenberg case is a pretty big deal for a few weeks. Jesse’s picture has been in the news.  
  
(He wonders if they’ll make a movie out of it or something, maybe a book. He thinks Mr White had mentioned that his wife was gonna be a writer—it must have been him, or maybe Hank or something, because he knows damn well Mrs White wouldn’t have told him that. Maybe she’ll write a book about it and finally do what she wanted. Or maybe she’s had about enough of Walter White and being associated with him. Jesse knows he sure has.)  
  
He watched one of the programs about it. Looking at his mugshot taken back in the beginning, the first time Hank brought him in, he hardly recognizes himself. Twenty four year old Jesse looks cocky and young, full of himself the way young guys are, carefree and not too worried. He looks like he’s kind of trashy, but also like he has a future. Jesse looks at himself in the mirror in the dirty bathroom of the cheap, shitty motel he’s staying at for the night, and hardly recognizes himself now, either. He looks old. He looks tired.  
  
He doesn’t recognize himself on the TV and he doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror. Who the fuck does that make him now, then? Who the fuck is he, anymore? There’s nobody here who can tell him; everyone who knew is dead now.  
  
He wonders if that cocky bastard on the TV died when he woke up to find Jane’s dead body, or when he shot Gale, or when he watched Todd shoot a kid, or when he watched Andrea die. He wonders if he died when Mr White found him covering up his car in his aunt’s driveway. Same car he used to drive her to her appointments. Same car he used to drive to Mr White’s— _Walter_ , he thinks, it’s just Walter now; he owes that fucker no respect—house to set it on fire. He doesn’t have that car anymore; wonders what happened to it.  
  
It doesn’t matter.  
  
He thinks about going to a support group or something, after the whole story has faded into history. Maybe one for like, PTSD people or something, or maybe another NA group. But that makes him think of rehab and the group leader and Andrea, and then his hands start shaking, and he decides against it.

 

iv.

 

One day, when he’s driving with Mike on one of their All Day Pickup Trips (ADPT for short, which kinda looks like the word adopt, which he thinks is pretty funny. He tells Mike one day, and Mike doesn’t think it’s very funny—says “no way in hell I’d ever ‘adopt’ your ass”—but he rolls his eyes and the corner of his mouth curls up just a tiny bit. He hardly ever does that, so Jesse feels pretty damn pleased with himself), Mike asks him if he has a back-up plan. Like, something he can do if he ever has to get out—of the business, of the state, whatever.  
  
“When,” He says, “When you get out.”  
  
“Whadda you mean?”  
  
“You’re young. You don’t wanna do this for the rest of your life.”  
  
He sounds real sure about it, like he knows what Jesse’s feeling down in his bones. Shit just keeps getting more and more wild and dangerous. Like, obviously cooking and selling meth was never a very secure, safe job, but he never had to kill anyone before he met Mr White. Never had to shoot anyone. Never been to fucking Mexico.  
  
“I guess not,” he says. “I dunno, you’ve been doing pretty good and you’re like, sixty.”  
  
Mike frowns. Jesse recognizes it as his ‘Jesse just said something dumb or annoying’ frown. He’s grown to take it as a sign of endearment at this point. “I’m not sixty. And I sure as hell didn’t get into this at twenty.”  
  
“I’m not twenty,” he scoffs. “What did you even do before this? I can’t picture you doing anything else. Like, can you imagine you in a McDonalds uniform?”  
  
Mike does that frown again. Rolls his eyes. “I was a cop, smartass.”  
  
Jesse sits forwards, much more interested than before. Mike hardly ever talks about personal shit. It feels like that’s all Jesse ever does, so it’s only fair that he gets to know some things, too.  
  
“For real? That’s wild, man. You used to enforce the law and now you break it.”  
  
Mike tilts his head a little. “Going back to my point. You got a plan?”  
  
“Not really. I figure I could just skip town if I need to.”  
  
“Yeah? And what about ID’s? Passports, money, credit cards. You’d want shit with different names, identities. If someone’s on your ass, you don’t want to leave a trail.”  
  
Mike always sounds serious, but he sounds more serious than usual. He’s using that kinda voice that usually means you want someone to listen to you. Kinda like Mr White when he teaches, but more important. Some life advice shit. Shit to take to heart.  
  
Jesse does. Take it to heart. It’s weird, having Mike look out for him. And obviously the plan thing works out for Mike when he dips with his to-go bag. So Jesse gets Saul to make him some fake ID’s, some passports or whatever, sticks them in a bag with plenty of cash, and puts it under the stairs at his aunt’s house. Probably not the most convenient place, but he’s not gonna go bury it in the desert or some shit.  
  
After he gets his chain around Todd’s neck and leaves Mr White to bleed out with that stupid meth lab, he drives to his aunt’s house, pulls the bag out of its hiding place, and speeds the fuck away. He wishes he could take his car, but that would draw too much suspicion—they would notice that it was gone, and that he was on the run or whatever. They would come after him. They might still come after him, but he could also be buried in the desert with the DEA agents for all they know.  
  
He drives the fuck out of Albuquerque and straight out of New Mexico, and he thinks about Mike. He thinks about how he knows Mr White killed him, and how Mr White just went around killing everyone who got in his way, and how he’s gonna he the dead one this time. Finally. Finally.  
  
He makes it four miles out of the state before he loses it. The car doesn’t break down, thank god, but he sure as fuck does. It feels like everything he’s felt for the past two years is finally rushing out. His body isn’t strong enough to keep it all in anymore. He drops his head into his dirty, scarred hands, feels the way his wrists burn where they’ve been chafed, those fucking handcuffs, and just cries. He’s never cried this hard in his life, not even after Aunt Ginny died, not even after Jane, or Andrea.  
  
He’s heard a bunch of people say that suffering builds character, whatever that means. Struggle makes you a stronger person. Jesse thinks, with his wrists and his scars and his two dead girlfriends, that that’s some straight bullshit.

 

v.

 

It’s weird that two people with the same disease can turn out so different. He supposes the types of cancer were different, but they were still both cancer. They both killed. He thinks that makes them the same, in the end.

But Aunt Ginny and Mr White. They both had the same thing but they didn’t turn out the same way at all. Aunt G didn’t change—well, of course she started to change near the end, would forget things and get stuff mixed up and never got over that damn opossum; she got a little softer, near the end, but she’d always been soft on him anyways. Her body and mine got weaker but she was still the same, core person at the end.

Mr White changed. It was such a quick thing, too, and he never admitted it, how much he changed. Or maybe he didn’t want to admit how much he hadn’t changed—Jesse heard somewhere that everyone has the ability to do horrible things, and that sometimes it just takes the right circumstances for them to do those things. So maybe that’s just how Mr White was all along, and the cancer just gave him the opportunity to let it all out. Maybe at the end, he was the still the same, core person too. Crazy fucker.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what kind of person Walter White—because he know he has to stop thinking of him as Mister White, his chem teacher and partner in crime or whatever, stop thinking about him as someone worth his time or respect—was. Because he is dead and Jesse is not. It doesn’t matter how much of a coward or a dumbass he thought Jesse was, because he’s not here to think it anymore. Walter White was right about a lot of things, but he was also really fucking wrong about the rest of it. Jesse doesn’t really think that any of this was for Walter’s family; if it was, his wife wouldn’t have a court date set for next month and his kid wouldn’t hate him.

But that’s not really his business anymore. Walter always kept work and family separated from each other, at least in the beginning. He doesn’t really know what he did at the end. He doesn’t really care to know.

Mike had once said that Jesse was loyal to the wrong guy.

He thinks that he was right. Unlike Walter, Mike was right about most things, and right about pretty much everything concerning them.

But Mike is dead now, too, so Jesse doesn’t know if that really matters anymore either.

 

vi.

 

There’s a moment, maybe eight or nine months in, where he’s staying at a not super shitty motel in Oregon, a few miles off the coast of the beach. It’s kind of cloudy today, but it’s still nice. He snagged a job at a local gas station that doesn’t really ask for ID without Jesse even having to offer. He can stay under the radar and still make some honest money. His cash won’t last him forever; he needs to become a pro at handling the stuff, or he’ll be out of it in a year.

Anyways, he’s down at the beach. Not all the way down in the water, cause he still doesn’t wanna draw attention to himself and it’s probably too cold either way. It’s kind of cloudy, and there’s a bit of a breeze, but he has a jacket he got from one of those donation places that leave the boxes out front. It’s nice and warm around him. He crosses his arms, and pulls out a smoke.

He doesn’t light it for a while, just watches the waves. He watches this ocean documentary once, and there was this whole section on seahorses—he remember telling Mike about it: “Did you know that the dude seashores get pegged? Or like, they carry the babies at least. They get pregnant, you know?”

He had thought it was kind of weird at first, but as he kept watching he decided it was kind of cool. Like, division of labor for the first time ever. He wonders if there are any seahorses out in the water he’s looking at right now.

And then. There’s a moment, where he thinks: I’m gonna be okay.

It feels more real than all the other times he’s told himself in the past few years. It feels true. Maybe things aren’t perfect right now, but they’re gonna turn out all right. He has his whole life ahead of him. He’s gonna be fine.

He breathes in the salty ocean air, wonders if this is what Cali smells like, too, and decides not to light his cigarette just yet.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comment to get me thru the 2nd semester


End file.
